When I got to Color Wheel, I tried not to look panicked when I saw her chin. I was imagining a little bruise - maybe pinkie fingernail size - at most. Instead, I saw this:
Granted, not life threatening, but more than I expected. I took her straight to Urgent Care where they x-rayed her chin. Luckily, everything was fine - traumatic, but fine. It's swollen and sore, but nothing structurally wrong.
Here's my confusion - why didn't Dutchtown Primary call me when this happened? Morgan said she fell in the classroom. Her teacher sent her to the office, the office gave her ice and she went back to class. I went through every page of the Student Handbook tonight, and it never discusses school accidents/incident reports or parent notification. Did a school nurse assess the situation and decide there was no need to call me? Was a school nurse even involved?
I'm probably overreacting (I should probably take more medicine...), but I'm still concerned at the lackadaisical response of the school. I have to sleep on this (or rather not sleep a wink) and figure out if I need to pursue this. Any thoughts?
8 comments:
Well, I think you are completly correct in the fact that the school did NOT respond in a professional manner. First of all b/c it was a facial/mouth injury. Teeth damage???? Hello........I do hope that you address this in true Heather Professional yet very stern fashion! Let them know that you have much HIGHER expectations for the way your daughters injuries are treated! Call me if you need back up!!
Take a deep breath, step back from the child...breath. Not to make light, the school should have at least acknowledged that they saw the wound and assessed the situation. I'm sure they did, just didn't document it. I'll send you a pic of my darling the day before her first dance lesson, she attended with 2 black eyes and a nose swollen all over her face!! She fell while skipping and caught her nose on the edge of a coffee table as she went down. Tell Avery to keep her chin down and no one will suspect.
I would definitely address this with the school. Maybe someone assumed the other one had called but in all reality no one did. They may not know anything was wrong until you call. Just like when Madilyn's teacher forgot her and another child in the classroom for an hour by themselves. The teacher totally forgot about them. I called the principal and she was shocked. Needless to say it was not the first complaint and the teacher is not there this year. Not that you want to get someone fired but it could be worse next time for another and they may not do anything then either. Call!
My first reaction (and understand that I am still able to care for my girl 24/7 but have to put up with her foot in my rib) was to relax, step back, sometimes bruises take a little time to appear so what may have looked like nothing got worse. Then I read the other comments and decided that yes you should address it with the school where it happened. Sandy has a good point that in the scheme of life it's not a big deal but yet had there been more damage - and the fact you decided to take her to urgent care you should have been notified immediately. The parent should make the determination but it's good you slept on to react rationally and to medicate.
Check them out on it!
I think the damn school nurses are so freaked out by the "swine flu" that they have minimized everything else... the school nurse at Oak Grove called my work week before last, had my secretary pull me out of a meeting, to tell me to come get Dylan immediately b/c he had a low-grade fever & headache. The nurse overreacted in that case, but apparently underreacted in your baby's case. I would definitely give the school a call to find out what happened.
OK, does the school have a nurse? it's public right? it should. We don't have one @ our school...catholic. go figure, but i digress...
I think you should have been notified at the very least. I would definitely speak to someone (other than the teacher) about this. Accidents happen, sure, but YOU should be the one making decisions for you child and you can't do that if they don't tell you what is going on.
You should act on this. The fact that they didn't informed you the moment the accident happened seems that they are covering something and tried to fixed it first before informing you. The security of a child in school should always be the responsibility of the school administrators(should always be on top of their everyday chores). The fact that something bad happened to your daughter is a sign of lapse to their responsibility(irresponsibility, unavoidable accident or whatever, but for God's sake, it's your daughter!). I wonder what happened since this post was dated May and I search for the subsequent posts of yours and I can't see any post talking about the accident. Hope they are fine...
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